[The Blue Grotto] Echoes

[Davor Aveloz]

5th of Fall, 515 A.V.

In the short span of his life, Davor had become intimately familiar with silence. Its quiet embrace, that comforting stillness and clarity it offered, even its rare deafening roars which blared in uproarious rebellion against the tyranny of sound became like an old friend to the boy. It came as no surprise to Davor that he and silence shared such a relationship, after all, that eerie quietness had been with him since birth. From the day he entered this world, silence had been at his side; in his unheard cries for food, in his violent shakes of quiet laughter, and residing deep in his soundless sobs. Truly, Davor had no older friend than that peculiar absence of noise, and it was within The Blue Grotto that the youth found his friend most abundant.

However, the young Symenestra had not climbed the long and twisting web which led to this near soundless sanctuary in an attempt to reminiscence with a dear old friend. No, if Davor wanted to wrap himself in silence, there were far easier, though admittedly far less beautiful, places to do it. So, why had this pale son of spiders fled far into the almost sapphire solace of the darkly entrancing blue pools which flirted with the sand underneath his feet? It came down to one, simple thing really.

Inspiration.

Perhaps despite popular belief, musicians did not create a concerto on creativity alone. No, music was a language, and Davor found that every language needed a subject to shape it and allow it to reach its full potential. Whether that topic be the subtle complexities of emotions, or, as he was attempting to translate now, the stark and stunning visages which nature offered, music required a font to spring from. A source from which notes could flow from like a river of sound in an attempt to emulate some small truth of its origin.

For now, Davor had found his inspiration in the clear, blue water which swirled whisper-soft at his feet. In the steady count of shimmering droplets which fell from the stalactites above him. In the myriad of quiet colors that Davor's mute tongue would never get the chance to give name to. In the subtle embrace of stone which gave the cavern an unexpectedly warm air about it.

The absolute beauty of the grotto filled Davor with a burning desire to force his silent voice to give birth to words that would describe such a place. Unfortunately, it did not appear his fate to designate this cavernous clearing with words.

So, instead, Davor raised his violin to his shoulder, drew his taught bow across the instrument's silver strings, and began to play; speaking in the only language of his that would ever truly be heard.

[Davor Aveloz]

Davor began his tribute to the cavern simply enough. HIs bow danced across the strings in a steady procession of ascending sound, and after some minor tinkering with the toggles at the head of his instrument, Davor was satisfied that his violin was properly tuned for this endeavor. With a deep, cleansing breath, the youth cleared his mind from the unnecessary distractions in his life, all those memories which tempted and taunted him as they flitted by in his mind, and set his bow on the sharpest sounding string.

With long and exaggerated strokes of his bow, Davor let the high, piercing notes of his E string sigh off his violin and bounce off the contoured walls of the cave. The preformance began easily enough, the actual notes belonging to one of the many scales the Symenestra had committed to memory. However, as he progressed down the scale, Davor let his lithe fingers wander from the established path they were so used to and jump into the startling unknown of improvisation.

His bow began to pick up pace, shifting from legato to allegro, and his fingers found themselves breaking out that banality of scaled measures and weaving together notes from across the full spectrum of his violin. His golden eyes were set alight by the near-incandescent colors which scorched sapphire in the swirling pools below him, glowing with a ferocity rare so deep in the earth. Davor stared deep into the burning blue water, and his bow seemed to move of its own accord as it attempted to capture such a sight that lay before him. The Symenestra saw in that water what he could only describe as fluid fire, a cold burning that consumed the depths of The Blue Grotto. A different sort of energy possessed both it and him, and Davor struggled to keep his rhythm in trying to birth his visions into music. He felt his heart beat faster as he sped up the pace of his sound, and a symphony of fast, light notes peppered with the mistakes of inexperience overtook the cavern.

A cold sweat began to overtake the youth as he poured himself into his song. He could feel the whispers of indecision begin to cloud his creativity. He stared deep into that pool of flame-like water, yet he felt no more drive to birth sound from this sight. Inspiration proved a fickle beast, and as Davor tried desperately to capture it in the rapid-fire notes which continued to beat off of his violin, he found himself losing it that much quickly. However, instead of the chilling fear which would have normally gripped him, Davor slowed his bow to a more reasonable pace. In other circumstances, the Symenestra would have been paralyzed with the anxiety of failure, but this grotto had become his stage. And on the stage, with instrument in hand, Davor seemed to be a different person entirely. He knew the extent of his skill, how hard he could push himself before he could break, and yet he found himself unafraid. As the slow, lilting sounds of concession began to overtake the frantic strokes still echoing off the walls of the cavern, it would seem to an outside observer that Davor became a different person with his violin in his hand. However, that observer could not have been more wrong.

It wasn't that Davor became a different person when he played. No, quite the contrary in fact. When Davor played, it was one of the only times he let his true self show. With a violin in hand, Davor didn't become a different person, he became his own person.

Returning once again to the comfort of his steady scale, the youth closed his eyes and listened to the quiet echoes of the world around him. Here, among the subtle reverberations his own sound, Davor found a music all of its own. The steady drip of water from the stalactites above proved consistent even among the elegant sounds which flew into existence from Davor's violin. The Symenestran child smiled softly as he saw the droplets, bright as diamonds, slide off their rocky homes and into that burning pool below. Inspiration, though fickle, did seem abundant here.

Davor chuckled noiselessly to himself, readjusting his instrument for what would be the second part of his musical adventure.

[Davor Aveloz]

Davor set his bow down by his feet, choosing to simply listen to the light tinkling of water hitting the pool below. Every droplet spawned ripples which spread to the near black shoreline, bright blue waves melding with the onyx outcropping. With every sapphire tear which ran from the dull stalactites above, a new sound was birthed. Light and clear, like the chiming of bells or the shattering of glass, the fractal sound was cheerful. It brought a small, soft smile to Davor's face. As silly as it sounded, it seemed to the youth that the cave was laughing, responding to the Symenestra's ardent attention to its natural beauty with sounds of joy. Davor knew it was impossible, but the very idea of it seemed so charming to him that the reality of it didn't really matter.

With the sound of the cave's laughter still fresh in his mind, Davor stretched his taught limbs slightly before bending down to pick up his bow and resuming his playing stance. However, instead of beginning his second set with the familiar motions of legatto that the youth found himself so often resorting to, Davor began plucking out an upbeat rhythm in a style that he had only read about in Dovna-Amaranthus' music books. Davor remembered that it was called 'Pizzicato', which, after some further reading, he gathered to be a fancy word for 'plucking'.

Davor started slowly at first, unused to the lack of bow in his hand. The notes he plucked off rang with his own apprehensiveness, but slowly and surely, the youth began to become accustomed to the style. After about a bell of simple scales, Davor soon found his fingers dancing across the strings, his race's natural agility and claws providing more than adequate advantages in this new style. With his confidence growing, the young violinist truly began his ode to the water droplets.

Settling for a jaunty, near-inquisitive tone, the slow pluckings of Davor's practice shifted into something with a quicker, happier rhythm. The soft drips of water into the pool was soon accompanied by the gentle sounds of swift strumming. While his previous set had been one of dramatic and important style, Davor kept this tribute going with rhythmic bounce which implored its absent listeners to move to the beat. The light music which flew off his violin rebounded throughout the whole of the cavern, filling the space with the joyful stylings which echoed deep within Davor himself. Even with the minor mistakes he was making, the odd note here or the out-of-tune strum there, Davor decided he thoroughly enjoyed this type of playing. It was the type of music that sang of a simple cheerfulness, one filled with the optimism and spryness of youth. He stood there for what seemed like bells to him, simply plucking out whichever tune natural progressed from his last note.

He was rapt in his playing, completely and utter lost among the notes which sprang to life about him. Outside troubles were foreign in the cave. All those niggling, little distractions plagued his everyday life, all those doubts and insecurities, they didn't matter here. Davor knew that when he had his violin in his hand, that when he played that eternal duet with the music of nature, he entered a world all of his own. One where he didn't have to worry about his future, or how he would preform that vaunted Harvest so many his age worried about. One where the fact that he couldn't speak, could never express laughter or suffering, or even tell his foster father how much he cared for him with his own voice, didn't matter.

No, in this world of his own creation, this world of notes and noise, his feelings where echoed in the music he made. And while he would give anything for a chance to say what he felt with his own voice, Davor knew that nothing short of a miracle could gift him the power of speech. He knew that, for now at least, he would have to be content with the echoes.

Noticing that his plucking had taken a slightly sadder turn, Davor sighed and stopped playing. The youth felt no more urge to emulate the cave which had once called out to him. However, the Symenestra was bound and determined to play, his desire reaching far beyond simple enjoyment. Davor felt the fires of creativity nip and bite at him, setting his soul aflame with purpose, and he refused to relinquish his grip on music so easily. His golden eyes alight with determination, Davor set the coarse hair of his bow against the thin, metal strings which ran across his violin.

The youth had spent the whole of his time in the Blue Grotto today focused entirely on emulating what he saw and what heard.

Now, Davor meant to play what he felt.

[Davor Aveloz]

Light, low echoes bounced off the smoothed cave walls as Davor began his set. The music sang sweetly off of his bow, every note a lilting chime that was meant to enchant and delight any wayward listener. It proved a shy melody, something that might have been a love song or the start of a sweet hymn. Quiet. Unassuming. Background noise that vanished from memory as soon as it entered.

A mask.

Davor paused his playing for the briefest of moments, readjusted his stance, and reset his bow at the base of the lowest cord of his instrument. Here and now, he didn't need a mask. He wanted to play what he felt, not was expected of him.

With a forceful, downward stroke, the mask fell.

Rough and raw, music erupted from his bow. Sound shattered every facet of quiet that infected the air; such a sharp betrayal of what Davor knew to be a good friend. His bow ran with a ragged grit to it, indicative of something darker stirring within the boy, and with every note rang a clear defiance. The style of music became abrupt, aggressive, and wholly opposite of what anyone knew of the Symestran child. Anger unrepentant coursed through his small frame as he wailed down on the innocent violin in his hands. He thought of the moments of his life where he felt helpless, where he felt so small that the weight of the world threatened to consume him. He thought of the sad stares from his fellows, the mean mutterings that were aimed at him during his schooling. He thought of all the times where he desperately wanted to share his opinion, to be heard, but was unable to because of his birth. He thought of growing up without his mother, the thought he would only know here by a smattering of stories passed down by a friend turned surrogate father. He thought of how his father still might be out there somewhere, but chose to avoid his responsibilities and let Davor suffer by himself.

He gathered the tortured, angry thoughts he kept so well hidden in his life, and let loose a cyclone of chords. The Symestran flinched occasionally as the rough horsehair of his bow began to snap itself into his face, but he played all the same. Davor needed this, needed to release the anger the clawed at him from the inside and desperately sought escape. So he played and played and played until his arm was sore from the strain and his fingers turned raw from exertion. But even as his pace slowed, even as the storm of sound that burned brightly from his bow whimpered into a whisper, Davor played until his rage had abated. The anger, the hate, had curled itself into a gnarled root inside the Symestran's soul, and it proved only by playing that the youth managed to uproot it.

With a sigh, Davor brought his bow to a stop. The echoes that had sliced through the silence continued on, even as the youth brought his violin down to his side. It had surprised him, how much he had bottled up inside. How much anger that demanded his attention and honesty as he played, it spoke miles of what Davor had done to suppress it in his daily life.

Davor moved to sit down, feet dangling off of the ledge he had chosen as his podium. He clung tightly to the dark wood of his violin, the last relic of his mother's life. The youth could still feel the echoes of anger that ran through his being, but smiled regardless. Looking down at the engraved instrument, Davor laughed soundlessly despite himself. Perhaps, as his playing today revealed, he could not outrun the echoes that plagued his daily life alone.

Give him a fiddle however, and he could sure as Hai outplay them.

[Aladari Coolwater]

Grades Withheld Notes: 4 months of inactivity, thread list not updated, player PM'd.